Afghan forces seize bomb-making cache

KABUL • Afghan security forces yesterday seized 156 sacks of ammonium nitrate, widely used in making explosives, from the back of a vegetable truck crossing from Pakistan, an official said, in one of the biggest such finds.

Intelligence officers found nearly eight tonnes of the chemical, "brought for insurgent activities", hidden under sacks of vegetables on the truck at the Torkham border crossing, at the end of the Khyber Pass, said a spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar province.

REUTERS

Manila strikes militants' hideout

MANILA • Philippine security forces yesterday launched airstrikes and a ground assault on Islamist militants' lair in Maguindanao province in the southern part of the country.

Brigadier-General Cirilito Sobejana, an army commander in charge of the operations, said the pre-dawn assaults on Liguasan marsh destroyed a bomb-making "factory" of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), a splinter group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

He said the destruction of the facility where the BIFF members were making improvised explosive devices is a big loss to the militants' capability to produce bombs.

XINHUA

Man nabbed over fatal bullet train stabbing

TOKYO • A man was arrested in central Japan after stabbing one person to death and injuring two others aboard a bullet train last Saturday night, a rare violent assault in the Asian nation.

The suspect, Ichiro Kojima, attacked the victims around 10pm aboard the shinkansen, which was travelling from Tokyo to a station in Osaka, police said. Police officers stormed the rail carriage and took the man into custody after the train with 880 passengers on board made an emergency stop at Odawara station.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE